Though this week’s Daytona 500 drivers may be rich and successful now, none of them reached NASCAR’s Super Bowl without some bumps along the way. We asked several drivers to share the story of a difficult moment with us. Up next: Jeff Gordon.
Jeff Gordon’s Road To The 2011 Daytona 500
Jeff Gordon first came to national attention while coming up through the sprint car ranks – and once he hit NASCAR, his career took off at a lightning-fast pace.
But did you know there was a time when Gordon’s sprint car career wasn’t going very well? Here he explains some of the adversity he faced as a teenager:
Right before things started going well for me – before I started being kind of a household name on ESPN’s “Saturday Night Thunder” and “Thursday Night Thunder” (USAC shows) – I was racing for a guy named Stan Shoff in a sprint car.
It was a great ride – they had great cars, good funding. And nothing went right for us.
I wrecked everything he had. So things were not going very well for me at that time, because I had an opportunity that I felt like was slipping away.
That’s when the whole “Night Before The 500” (USAC race) came about on ESPN. We went and set a new track record...and won the race. And that changed my whole career.
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